MUSIC

Bassist, composer and producer Shay Hazan returns with his third solo album, ‘When It Rains It Pours’, on Batov Records. Following the critical success of ‘Reclusive Ritual’ and ‘Wusul’ وصول, Hazan takes a bold step forward, shifting from the guimbri-led sound that established his reputation to a broader palette of bass, guitar, and synth-driven compositions.

Where his earlier work foregrounded the raw, earthy textures of Gnawa tradition, ‘When It Rains It Pours’ reflects Hazan’s evolution as a producer and multi-instrumentalist. Across eleven tracks, Hazan deepens his exploration of layered grooves, spiritual melodies, and experimental textures, resulting in his most expansive and personal statement to date.

The album’s title embodies Hazan’s experience of being tested by life when multiple challenges arrived at once - musically, personally, and physically. A painful period in which he was unable to play double bass or guimbri due to joint issues became the spark for rediscovering the electric bass, reconnecting him with an instrument he had set aside on personal projects for years. The record documents this transition, capturing the tension between struggle and renewal.

The opening track,“Kolot”, was born from a half-forgotten session with Ethiopian saxophonist and vocalist Abate Berihune, re-emerging years later as something entirely new. Originally intended as a quintet jazz piece, Hazan uncovered Berihune’s extraordinary vocal take, wordless but deeply resonant, and built the track around it. “Kolot” means voices, and here Berihune’s voice transcends language, channeling pure expression.

“4-8” is a classic Afrobeat framework twisted with Middle Eastern inflections. Hazan plays nearly every instrument, except for live drums and saxophone, crafting a propulsive, hypnotic piece that nods to Fela Kuti while expanding the tradition into new terrain.

“Embrace” is perhaps Hazan’s most vulnerable composition to date, featuring his own vocals alongside guimbri and keyboards. The piece speaks to embracing pain, fear, and anxiety rather than pushing them aside, a mantra woven into its circular, meditative groove.

“It Pours” is an uptempo, electronically-charged piece that blurs the line between organic and synthetic. Hazan recorded percussion, then sampled and re-layered it, creating a sound that is simultaneously tactile and machine-like. The result is a restless, dance-driven track that pushes Hazan’s sound into new territory.

Unlike his previous guimbri-focused albums, Hazan’s approach here highlights his growth as a studio craftsman. Sampling, layering, and textural exploration sit at the core, without losing the immediacy of live musicianship. Longtime collaborators including saxophonist Eyal Netzer, trumpeter Roy Zuzovsky, and drummer Shahar Haziza, help ground the record in ensemble interplay, even as it pushes further into electronic and producer-led territory.

The album’s gestation was shaped by encounters and inspirations stretching far beyond Tel Aviv. Hazan draws influence from Malawian one-man-band Gasper Nali, the spiritual openness of his recording sessions with legendary drummer Hamid Drake, and years of improvisational collaborations across jazz and global traditions.

‘When It Rains It Pours’ captures Shay Hazan at a turning point: confronting physical and personal limitations, yet finding new creative channels in response. By leaning into bass, guitar, and studio experimentation, Hazan has crafted an album that feels at once urgent, meditative, and transformative, a body of work that situates him firmly among today’s most adventurous voices in spiritual jazz and beyond.

For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of “Afro Mingei.” The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance — “Black is Beautiful” defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.

Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried “Portrait of Yanagi” drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent “Galaxy” gestures toward Sun Ra’s late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotus’s early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okada’s choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarek’s “Nefertite” shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europe’s own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzuki’s “Love” channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.

Okada’s life has been shaped by such crossings. He grew up in Fussa, where the Yokota U.S. Air Force base loomed large, learning guitar in rowdy clubs for American servicemen while teaching himself recording at home. That hybrid education led to collaborations with Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, James Blackshaw, and Carlos Niño, and to a body of work spanning film soundtracks, collaborative projects, and exploratory solo albums. Earlier this year, Temporal Drift released The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line, which features selections from Okada’s expansive archive of recorded material, cementing his reputation as one of Japan’s most adventurous contemporary musicians. With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.

- Words by Randall Roberts

Planet Ilunga presents, in collaboration with the children of Nico Kasanda alias Docteur Nico, an anthology dedicated to African Fiesta Sukisa, available as a 3LP and a digital release (with bonus songs). This release is the fruit of many years of preparations and was realized in close partnership with Liliane Kasanda, Nico’s eldest daughter. Marking forty years since his passing, we felt that the year 2025 was the right time to honor Docteur Nico’s legacy with this original collection.

Almost all of the African Fiesta Sukisa songs were released on Nico’s Sukisa label which translates in Lingala for “the final accomplishment”. The music on Sukisa, crafted by Nico, Dechaud and legendary vocalists such as Chantal, Sangana, Apôtre, Lessa Lassan and Josky, embodies the essence of that powerful phrase with genius and class. The label ran between 1966 and 1975 and released approximately 280 songs. Ngoma also issued the group between 1967 and 1971 and, in addition, reissued material from the Sukisa label. Many of the Sukisa songs have become part of the collective memory of Congolese society and are still heard, discussed, and analyzed daily across digital platforms worldwide, as well as on numerous Congolese radio and television stations.

The album we put together features some of African Fiesta Sukisa’s signature songs alongside never before reissued tracks from the Sukisa catalog. It furthermore contains a large booklet with song commentary, testimonial interviews from well-known musicians, journalists, fans and Nico’s entourage, besides never-before-published photos from the family’s personal archive, illustrating the life and career of the one and only ‘dieu de la guitare’.

Alastair Johnston, author of the book ‘A Discography of Docteur Nico’ and longstanding Planet Ilunga collaborator, designed a stylish booklet and cover using all our collected material. Audifax Bemba, longtime admirer, compiler and connoisseur of Nico’s music, and the author of most of the song commentary in our accompanying and very visual booklet, offers his portrait of Nico Kasanda:

“After displaying technical virtuosity with African Jazz, expert and accomplished guitar with African Fiesta, which musicologist Sylvain Bemba described as a dream guitar, Nico Kasanda was consecrated ‘dieu de la guitare’ by the public in the late sixties. With his band African Fiesta Sukisa, Docteur Nico displays his wide palette of unusual sounds. While exploring the Hawaiian guitar with its clear, airy, plangent, psychedelic effluvia, he continues to replicate the piano comping technique, and adds two missing strings to his bow: a simulation of the sanza (likembé or thumb piano), whose sounds he reproduces right down to the noisemakers of the tiny tin rings on the one hand, and the sounds of the Luba balafon on the other.

The right note, in the right place, at the right time, is the triptych on which Nico Kasanda’s playing is based, a note dressed in the perfect sound. A guitar of pure emotion. With African Fiesta Sukisa, his playing takes a ‘Chopin-esque’ turn, sending out more notes in a sublime adagio. The true artist is the one who simplifies everything. Docteur Nico is a genius of our time, whose style makes him the supreme exponent of the most important guitar school in Congolese music. He is recognized by his peers as the greatest African solo guitarist of all time. Sculpting sound in a tireless quest for beauty, Nico Kasanda has sublimated the guitar throughout his career.”

SML is the quintet of bassist Anna Butterss, synthesist Jeremiah Chiu, saxophonist Josh Johnson, percussionist Booker Stardrum, and guitarist Gregory Uhlmann. Their second album, How You Been, finds the supergroup of prolific composer/producers pushing ever further into the hyperrealist, collectivist approach to music creation nascently explored on their debut Small Medium Large, which was lauded as “awe-inspiring” by Glide, “exuberant” by the Los Angeles Times, and “an exciting milestone” by Pitchfork.

How You Been represents a breakthrough in the musical language of the group. This new work was crafted via extensive post-production of recordings from a handful of shows in a similar fashion to their debut, but whereas Small Medium Large was constructed from analog tapes of the band’s very first (and very modest) shows at bygone Highland Park LA venue ETA, How You Been was built with a higher level of self-awareness and a far deeper pool of source material.

Behind the thrust of the first album’s success, the band approached every performance in late 2024 and early 2025 as a generative opportunity to hone their sound and document their expansion across a new landscape of audiences, venues, and cities. Despite the premeditation driving their commitment to record every moment, the band started every show without musical direction, improvising intuitively, completely. Within every performance is an impressive display of the band’s total trust in one another and confidence in their own instincts.

As SML has evolved and spread out in space-time, their fluencies, both as an improvising unit in performance and as a production team in the studio, have sharpened. At inception the band inspired disparate but distinctive artist comparisons like Essential Logic, Oval, Herbie Hancock’s Sextant, and electric Miles Davis, as well as assorted genre touchpoints like Afrobeat, kosmiche, proto-techno and new-jazz. With How You Been their work manages to both collapse and explode such derivatives, displaying a new, high resolution version of SML, fully-flowered into a new strain of sound, bound to incite its own copycats in due time.

“SML might signal a new iteration of jazz, or it might not be jazz at all, or it might not matter.” - Pitchfork

It’s important to note that SML’s sound wasn’t created in a vacuum. The band is part of an extensive community of creative musicians who collaborate in a multitude of ways, and that community has proven to be essential to a growing family tree of innovative, genre-expanding music. Los Angeles in the 2020s is a musical Petri dish in the same way that Cologne & Dusseldorf were for the birth of Krautrock; Canterbury for progressive rock in the late 60s; NYC for No Wave & the Downtown sound in the late 70s and 80s; Chicago for genreless, Tortoise-adjacent sounds in the 90s. The musicians of SML represent the core of a new school within the Los Angeles jazz and improvised music scene that seems to breed infinitely overlapping combinations, including Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet and Expansion Trio, the Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes trio, Anna Butterss’s own band (as heard on 2024’s Mighty Vertebrate), and various other solo and ensemble projects encompassing every single member of the SML, respectively.

On How You Been the curatorial challenge of the capture-cut production employed by SML is met by the delightful happenstance of each member being a seasoned producer on their own merit. Accordingly, SML’s perspective on what is a moment to expand upon with the post-producer’s knife and glue is five-strong. Each member’s proclivities, penchants, and predelections get their chance to filter the always-evolving elements of the group concept.

“Chicago Four” uses a live recording from treasured Chicago haunt The Empty Bottle as its foundation. It begins with interlocking synth and percussion loops before the entry of Uhlmann’s wobble-effected electric guitar melody and Butterss’s picked bass counterpoint. Stardrum’s swinging traps slide in, catching up to a couple of added percussion layers, before Johnson adds distorted chordal hits that sound like hard horn samples from a golden era Bomb Squad or Rakim beat. It all intertwines perfectly and makes an otherworldly vehicle for Johnson and Chiu’s cascading keyed melody, which soars above and between, complimenting either side of a hypnotically shifting, infectiously repeating modulation.

“Brood Board SHROOM” is a temporary touchdown on an alien planet where rhythm moves in timeless, breath-like undulations, with repetitions cut from a very different cloth than the lock-step polyrhythmic grooves of “Chicago Four.” The track’s opening lines evoke the soft throbs of the beloved ambient works of Aphex Twin (or perhaps a Robitussen-drenched take on Steve Reich’s Different Trains), before frothy curtains of textured sound drape into the mix, overlaying like distant, minimalist symphonies in a gentle, synthetic recreation of free time — slackening and accelerating as each layer of tonal pulses hovers to front-and-center or retreats into the distance. It’s a gut feeling rather than an academic exercise, and it’s all in the service of forward motion. “Plankton” occupies a similar space albeit in bite-sized form, centering Buterss’s low end melodicism and high-string visitations surrounded by skittering tonal chatter from their bandmates.

Of course, SML’s experiments with this kind of pulsating freedom are heavily balanced by muscular turns and body mechanics fit for the dancefloor. “Taking Out the Trash” is a perfect pace-setter for How You Been, a punchy nugget encapsulating the essence of SML. Chiu’s percussion synth establishes the groove before Stardrum and Butterss drop in on a heavy breakbeat. Uhlmann comes in with a searing, plucked staccato funk line on his guitar that would give Glenn Branca and Larry Coryell something to high five about. Things eventually trip into a total breakdown, with only the perc synth still looping. When the band explodes back in, the key has changed, and Johnson is letting loose on a wailing, distorted saxophone solo.

“Is there a way to dim the lights a little more?” Chiu asks at the start of the album’s closer “Mouth Words.” Moments later SML takes us out with a mid-tempo 4/4 groover dressed in swelling glissandos and punctuated by insistent, rapid-fire phrases from Johnson’s alto. As the final tune dissolves into a layer of arpeggiated chirps and sampled crowd sounds, Chiu’s voice is back again to say what we’re all thinking: “Very good. Thank you.”

Drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti’s explorative percussions join Afro-Portuguese artist Nídia’s singular beat-making for an exciting new collaboration in dance music. From the first beat, listeners are drawn into a world where rhythm reigns supreme and movement is inevitable. The album explores a diverse yet universal musical language through syncopated drum patterns, pulsating marimba lines, and melodic interludes.

A hat to let others know when you are engaged in deep listening. Turn it backwards to activate a delicate request for silence from those behind you. Classic 6-panel cap with adjustable strap and large embroidered "I'm in the Listening Position" logo.

A t-shirt with embroidered Kelan Phil Cohran logo. Celebrate the legacy of Kelan Phil Cohran's genius with a subtle representation.Slightly oversized fit. Boxy sizes a little wider and a little shorter.100% Reclaimed Waste Cotton and Biodegradeable. Knit, sewn and finished by Everybody.World in Los Angeles with a fair-wage workforce. L size

Stones Throw Records debuts new imprint Listening Position with the long-awaited reissue of Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy’s spiritual jazz masterpiece African Skies.

A holy grail for jazz collectors, African Skies has been out of print since its initial pressing of 1000 vinyl copies in 2010. The thousands who’ve long sought their own copy will welcome this reissue as the definitive version of this profound recording. Used copies fetch over $500+ on the used market, and thousands of users “want” the record on Discogs.com.

Kelan Phil Cohran was a member of the pioneering afro- futurist Sun Ra Arkestra and appears on several of their most acclaimed recordings.

He released several albums of his own compositions in the 1960s with his band The Artistic Heritage Ensemble, including a revelatory tribute to Malcom X – a well-known collectible for jazz aficionados.

Cohran was a mentor to artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a Chicago-based brass band whose members included 8 of his sons.

Stones Throw Records debuts new imprint Listening Position with the long-awaited reissue of Kelan Phil Cohran & Legacy’s spiritual jazz masterpiece African Skies.

A holy grail for jazz collectors, African Skies has been out of print since its initial pressing of 1000 vinyl copies in 2010. The thousands who’ve long sought their own copy will welcome this reissue as the definitive version of this profound recording. Used copies fetch over $500+ on the used market, and thousands of users “want” the record on Discogs.com.

Kelan Phil Cohran was a member of the pioneering afro- futurist Sun Ra Arkestra and appears on several of their most acclaimed recordings.

He released several albums of his own compositions in the 1960s with his band The Artistic Heritage Ensemble, including a revelatory tribute to Malcom X – a well-known collectible for jazz aficionados.

Cohran was a mentor to artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Chaka Khan and The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, a Chicago-based brass band whose members included 8 of his sons.

Myth? Legend? No need to pump this up, the music is self evident. As is the crew of Marfox, NK, Nervoso, Fofuxo, Pausas and Jesse, who shaped the universe as we know it. The simplest of elements for maximum (minimal) impact, an imperative burst of energy that perfectly echoes the title of Marfox's first EP: I Know Who I Am. These are statements of personality directly stamped on the dancefloor. "Hard Tecno" (without the H, yes) embodies the crystal clear intention of the set: to light a fire wherever the beats fall. To make people smile and move. And this was (and is) achieved without the need for obvious smiley culture signposts. The music just came through with fierce enthusiasm. All were youngsters (Nervoso being the elder) in 2007, and youth is definitely a factor in the fearless display of bare bones dance music production. Raw, is it? A second volume of DJs di Guetto on Príncipe was always going to happen. The tough part was deciding how to organize the bangers on the tracklist without ending up with a quadruple vinyl set. Thus separate volumes 1&2. Volume 1 (2023) was culled from the actual DJs di Guetto compilation (self released in 2006), whereas Volume 2 comes straight from the crew's archives, nearly 100% unreleased tracks produced in 2007. The crew disbanded as such a long time ago, but the legacy stands as sacred scriptures stand. FL Studio and standard laptop and tower desktop PCs combined as raw materials; a no-fuss approach added by these DJs and producers who sound unequivocally rootsy and primeval, drinking from the source. Also punishingly minimal, dry and alien. Happy-sad, sweet-sour, nice-angry, soft-aggressive. Words fail us. It's 2026, new humans seem to be on the rise but some old ways are still enthralling.

Ghanaian hiplife phenom Yaw Atta-Owusu presents charming results of his first studio session since 1994’s sleeper hit ‘Obaa Sima’, which found an overdue, cult audience via the blogosphere as one of Awesome Tapes From Africa’s earliest and greatest drops in 2015. If you weren’t snagged on the ohrwurming keys, vox, and groove of the title tune to Ata Kak’s ‘Obaa Sima’ in 2015, you probably weren’t going to the right clubs and checking the right sites. 10 years later it still kills and is set to be joined by this fresh haul from the Bishop Beatz recording studio in Kumasi, Ghana, where Ata Kak laid down ‘Batakari’, his 1st recordings in three decades, recapturing the moxie of his original sound on six cuts that betray time and space travelled within more ambitious arrangements of signature fast chat factored by layered harmonies and rhythmic variegation. “Honed in studios around Kumasi over the last several years, the songs feature the rapper-singer’s acrobatic rap, signature scatting, dramatic drums and even traditional Akan harp. The compositions are more ambitious than his earlier work, with more complex arrangements and layered harmonies. Ata Kak’s new songs are also the natural expression of a restless artist—he is a prolific poet and author of a half-dozen books, as well as an active gardener and busy painter. Born in Ghana in 1960, Ata Kak wasn’t always involved in music. But his travels and openness to the world lead him into the music industry. While living in Germany, he was invited to play drums in a reggae band and subsequently played in highlife bands in Ontario after moving to the Toronto area. He recorded “Obaa Sima” there at his home studio and released it in Ghana in 1994. He didn’t participate in music much in the intervening years until “Obaa Sima” was reissued in 2015. He started performing his song live with the help of a brilliant cast of London-based musicians and has toured three continents and played to thousands of fans in venues of all kinds.”

THE FIRST-EVER VINYL RELEASE OF BRION GYSIN’S CULT RECORDINGS, PRODUCED IN THE 1980S AND EARLY 1990S BY RAMUNTCHO MATTA. A HYPNOTIC, GROOVE-DRIVEN BLEND OF FUNKY AFROBEAT, AMBIENT AND MINIMALISM, DREAMACHINE CHANNELS THE VISIONARY EFFECTS OF GYSIN’S ICONIC LIGHT ART DEVICE. A HUGELY INFLUENTIAL FIGURE, GYSIN WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF A MAJOR PARIS MUSEUM OF MODERN ART EXHIBITION OPENING SPRING 2026. ​ ​Wewantsounds is delighted to release for the 1st time on vinyl Brion Gysin’s cult recordings, produced by Ramuntcho Matta in the 80s and early 90s. The release features the hypnotic 32-minute journey "Dreamachine," which transforms the effects of Gysin’s legendary light art device into a hypnotic audio experience infused with minimalist and Afrobeat elements, alongside the track "The Door," featuring the visionary saxophonist Steve Lacy. A towering figure in avant-garde art, literature, and sound, Gysin influenced generations of creators, from William Burroughs to David Bowie and Laurie Anderson. Newly remastered and accompanied by liner notes by Gysin scholar Jason Weiss, this LP edition coincides with a major exhibition dedicated to Gysin at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, opening Spring 2026, underscoring his lasting impact on contemporary culture. ​ Wewantsounds continues its exploration of the archives of French producer and musician Ramuntcho Matta with the first-ever vinyl release of these cult recordings by Brion Gysin, one of the most radical and influential figures of 20th-century counterculture. A pioneering artist whose work spanned literature, sound, performance, and visual art, Gysin remains inseparable from the Beat movement and his long-time friend William Burroughs. Born in England and raised in Edmonton, Canada, he lived in Paris in the ‘30s, New York in the ‘40s, Tangier in the ‘50s—where Paul Bowles introduced him to the Master Musicians of Jajouka—and returned to Paris by the end of that decade, becoming a central figure among writers and artists experimenting with new forms of expression. His cut-up technique, permutation poetry, and cross-disciplinary approach influenced generations of creators including David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Genesis P. Orridge, and Burroughs himself. ​ Produced by Ramuntcho Matta in the 1980s and early 1990s, the recordings on Dreamachine reflect Brion Gysin’s fascination with altered perception. Matta had returned to Paris after a late-1970s stay in New York following the death of his brother, Gordon Matta-Clark, and had already produced Gysin’s album Junk and the single Kick featuring Don Cherry. At the center is the title track "Dreamachine" a hypnotic 32-minute piece built on minimalist repetition, echoing the stroboscopic effects of Gysin’s iconic light sculpture. Slowly evolving grooves create a trance-like state, drawing on Afrobeat in the lineage of Fela Kuti and the laid-back, cyclical guitar patterns of King Sunny Adé’s juju music. As Jason Weiss notes, “the strands of Gysin’s narrative phase in and out of focus, suggesting that experience and memory can always be revisited through new connecting threads.” Conceived as a sonic extension of the eponymous visual device, invented by Gysin with Ian Sommerville, Dreamachine reshapes the listener’s sense of time and perception. The record also includes The Door, a striking collaboration featuring the legendary saxophonist Steve Lacy, adding further depth to the avant-garde jazz elements of Gysin’s world. ​ This vinyl features remastered audio and an insert with a striking photo of Gysin and Burroughs in front of the Dreamachine, shot by French photographer François Lagarde, alongside liner notes by Weiss situating the recordings in historical and artistic context. Issued alongside a major exhibition dedicated to Gysin at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, opening Spring 2026, this release is both a vital archival document and a timely reappraisal of an artist whose influence continues to resonate across contemporary music and art.

Tsapiky music from Southwest Madagascar features wild ecstatic vocals, distorted electric guitars, rocket bass, and the amphetamine beat! Unlike anything else, this is THE high life music you've always wanted - ceremonial music played with abandon and extreme intent, honoring the living and dead alike. In Toliara and its surrounding region, funerals, weddings, circumcisions and other rites of passage have been celebrated for decades in ceremonies called mandriampototse. During these celebrations – which last between three and seven days – cigarettes, beer and toaky gasy (artisanal rum) are passed around while electric orchestras play on the same dirt floor as the dancing crowds and zebus. The music, tsapiky, defies any classification. This compilation showcases the diversity of contemporary tsapiky music. Locally and even nationally renowned bands played their own songs on makeshift instruments, blaring through patched-up amps and horn speakers hung in tamarind trees, projecting the music kilometers away. Lead guitarists and female lead singers are the central figures of tsapiky. Driven as much by their creative impulses as by the need to stand out in a competitive market, the artists distinguish themselves stylistically through their lyrics, rhythms or guitar riffs. They must also master a wide repertoire of current tsapiky hits, which the families that attend inevitably request before parading in front of the orchestra with their offerings. This work, a constant push and pull between distinction and imitation, is nourished by fertile exchanges between various groups: acoustic and electric, rural and urban, coastal or inland. What results during these ceremonies is a music of astonishing intensity and creativity, played by artists carving out their own path, indifferent to the standards of any other music industry: Malagasy, African or global.

Strut proudly presents the first-ever reissue of a landmark 1974 Ghanaian highlife classic Sikyi Highlife by Dr K. Gyasi & His Noble Kings, originally released on Essiebons. A defining recording of the era, Sikyi Highlife bridges tradition and innovation at a pivotal moment in Ghanaian music. Deeply rooted in the classic 1950s–’60s highlife sound, K. Gyasi drew inspiration from the ancient sikyi drum-dance of the Akan people of southern Ghana, shaping the album’s rhythms around its distinctive pulse. The vocal arrangements echo the traditional Akan modal style, grounding the music firmly in Ghana’s cultural heritage. Yet Sikyi Highlife is equally forward-thinking. As electric guitars became standard in highlife during the 1960s, the 1970s ushered in further experimentation. The Noble Kings broke new ground as the first highlife guitar band to incorporate keyboards and a full horn section into their sound, expanding the genre’s sonic possibilities while retaining its rootsy spirit. Gyasi’s approach was part of a broader indigenisation movement among Ghana’s electric highlife bands in the post-independence era. Inspired by the nation’s ‘African Personality’ ethos and reinforced by Afrocentric messages arriving from American soul and funk, artists began reclaiming traditional forms within modern arrangements. Contemporaries included Koo Nimo, who revived the older palmwine style, and drummer Nii Ashitey, whose Wulomei band pioneered a folklorised Ga highlife sound from 1973. Like many musicians of his generation, Gyasi was a passionate supporter of Ghana’s independence movement. In 1963, he travelled as a musical ambassador alongside Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, performing across North Africa and the USSR and carrying Ghanaian culture onto the world stage. The Noble Kings’ mid-’70s line-up featured some of the country’s finest musicians, including guitarist Eric Agyeman (who led the band at the time), Thomas Frimpong on drums and vocals, Ernest Honny on organ, and bassist Ralph Karikari - who was renowned for his innovative technique of translating the rhythms and tonal language of the traditional talking drum onto electric bass. Upon its original release, Sikyi Highlife became one of the biggest-selling albums of the 1970s for Essiebons, earning Gyasi the affectionate honorary title of “Dr” from his devoted fans. Today, the album remains an evergreen classic, still cherished across Ghana and beyond.

Rarest Afro-Latinate funk fire from ’70s / ‘80s Benin, by a Vodún initiate known as “The Devil’s Prime Minister”, and recalled with admiration and fear by those he played with. A dozen cuts, 73 minutes of inimitable West African potency, performed by the crackshot L’Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou - check for ‘Ye Ko Gni Me Towe Dea’ and you’ll know what to do next. "Even the most dedicated crate-digger might go their whole life without stumbling across any of the three LPs Antoine Dougbe released in the late 1970s and early '80s. Yet he is remembered with a mixture of admiration and fear; for Antoine Dougbe was not merely one of the most inventive songwriters to emerge from the fertile music scene of Cotonou, but also a powerful Vodun initiate whose close connection to the spirit world allowed him to refer to himself as "the Devil's prime minister." Whether driven by the thrill of the music or by fear of crossing the Devil's prime minister, Dougbe's records all feature Orchestre Poly-Rythmo playing at the absolute height of their considerable powers. But Dougbe was unique in the sense he neither sang nor performed any of the main instrumental parts. It has been suggested that his involvement with Vodun prohibited him from using his voice for anything as frivolous as a popular song. Instead he provided his songs to Melome Clement, who arranged them for the band; most of the vocals were handled by Lohento Eskill and Amoussou William."

Awesome Tapes From Africa the label began over 10 years ago with the reissue of Nahawa Doumbia’s Vol. 3. The recording kicked off a successful run of classic and new recordings from artists across Africa, being made available for the first time in the international marketplace. ATFA makes it possible for artists to expand their fanbases and revenues streams with legally licensed recordings and a 50/50 profit split. For its 50th release, ATFA presents iconic Malian singer Nahawa Doumbia’s beloved Vol. 2. Released on LP in 1982 and unavailable outside Mali until now, Vol. 2 is an intimate yet powerful document of the early efforts of one of Mali’s most enduring voices. Four decades of worldwide acclaim later, Doumbia is still touring the world blowing minds with her achingly emphatic singing backed by her partner guitarist N’gou Bagayoko. Vol. 2 is stark in its instrumentation—simply featuring voice and acoustic guitar—but massive in its sonic impact. Painstakingly extracted and remastered from LP by longtime ATFA audio engineer collaborator Jessica Thompson, this is the first time this recording has been cleaned-up for wider release. The master recording no longer exists and the original was pressed at relatively inferior quality, heightening the difficulty of presenting Vol. 2 with clarified audio. The historic recording was worth the effort. Doumbia’s voice soars above Bagayoko’s guitar as she lays out her plaintive approach to expressing relevant topics of the day. The room sound could be considered the third instrument as its shape and sonic affect is vibrantly apparent throughout. And the simplicity of this recording only enhances the immediacy of these four songs. As a bookend to both Doumbia’s long career and ATFA’s growing catalog, Vol. 2 is a grand yet unpretentious encapsulation of the energy behind this decade-long collaboration between artist and label.

Recorded live at the Detroit Institute of Arts on July 20, 2025, A Tribute to Pharoah Sanders captures Detroit reed master Wendell Harrison and his ensemble TRIBE in a transcendent performance honoring Harrison’s longtime friend and fellow jazz icon. The concert—part of Detroit’s Concert of Colors festival and later broadcast on PBS—finds Harrison channeling Sanders’ spirit through deep tenor cries, hypnotic grooves, and Afro-spiritual improvisation. Joined by an exceptional group of musicians including Sky Covington, Pamela Wise, Michael Abbo, Sam Melkonian, Kevin Dalton Jones, Allen Denard, Edward Gooche, Stephen Grady, Roberto Warren, and special guests, Harrison leads an inspired exploration of sound and soul. This limited LP will be released on vinyl exclusively for Record Store Day 2026.

Khadim is a stunning reconfiguration of the Ndagga Rhythm Force sound. The instrumentation is radically pared down. The guitar is gone; the concatenation of sabars; the drum-kit. Each of the four tracks hones in on just one or two drummers; otherwise the sole recorded element is the singing; everything else is programmed. Synths are dialogically locked into the drumming. Tellingly, Ernestus has reached for his beloved Prophet-5, a signature go-to since Basic Channel days, thirty years ago. Texturally, the sound is more dubwise; prickling with effects. There is a new spaciousness, announced at the start by the ambient sounds of Dakar street-life. At the microphone, Mbene Diatta Seck revels in this new openness: mbalax diva, she feelingly turns each of the four songs into a discrete dramatic episode, using different sets of rhetorical techniques. The music throughout is taut, grooving, complex, like before; but more volatile, intuitive and reaching, with turbulent emotional and spiritual expressivity.

Not that Khadim represents any kind of break. Its transformativeness is rooted in the hundreds upon hundreds of hours the Rhythm Force has played together. Nearly a decade has passed since Yermande, the unit’s previous album. Every year throughout that period — barring lockdowns — the group has toured extensively, in Europe, the US, and Japan. With improvisation at the core of its music-making, each performance has been evolutionary, as it turns out heading towards Khadim. “I didn’t want to simply continue with the same formula, says Ernestus. “I preferred to wait for a new approach. Playing live so many times, I wanted to capture some of the energy and freedom of those performances.” Though several members of the touring ensemble sit out this recording — sabar drummers, kit-drummer, synth-player — their presence abides in the structure and swing of the music here.

Lamp Fall is a homage to Cheikh Ibra Fall, founder of the Baye Fall spiritual community. The mosque in the city of Touba is known as Lamp Fall, because the main tower resembles a lantern. Soy duggu Touba, moom guey séen / When you enter Touba, he is the one who greets you. After a swift, incantatory start Mbene sings with reflective seriousness. Her voice swirls with reverb, over a tight, funky, propulsive interplay between synth and drums, threaded with one- two jabs of bass. Cheikh Ibra Fall mi may way, mo diayndiou ré, la mu jëndé ko taalibe… Cheikh Ibra Fall amo morome, aboridial / Cheikh Ibra Fall shows the way forward, he gives us strength, he gathers his disciples… Overflowing with grace, Cheikh Ibra Fall has no equal.

Interwoven with Wolof proverbs, Dieuw Bakhul is a recriminatory song about treachery, lies, and back-biting. Over moody, roiling synths and ominous, lean bass, Mbene throws out fluttering scraps of vocal, as if re-running old conversations in her head. The music shadows her despair to the verge of breakdown, at one moment seemingly so lost in thought and memories, that it threatens to disintegrate. Bayilene di wor seen xarit ak seen an da ndo… Dieuw bakhul, dieuw ñaw na / Stop judging your friends and companions… A lie is no good, a lie is ugly.

Khadim is a show-stopper; currently the centrepiece of Ndagga Rhythm Force live performances. The song is dedicated to Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba, aka Khadim, founder of the Mouride Sufi order. Serigne Bamba mi may wayeu / Serigne Bamba is the one who makes me sing. The verses name-check revered members of his family and brotherhood, like Sokhna Diarra, Mame Thierno, and Serigne Bara. Though Islam has been practised in Senegal for a millennium, it wasn’t until the start of the twentieth century that it began to thoroughly permeate ordinary Senegalese society, hand-in-hand with anti-colonialism. The verses here recall Bamba’s banishment by the French to Gabon, and later to Mauritania, in those foundational times. During exile, his captors once introduced a lion to his cell: gaïnde gua waf, dieba lu ci Cheikhoul Khadim / the lion doesn’t budge, it gives itself over to Cheikh Khadim. Deep, surging bass, steady kick-drum, and simple, reverbed chords on the off-beat lend the feel and impetus of steppers reggae. A reed plays snatches of a traditional Baye Fall melody; the dazzling polyrhythmic drumming is by Serigne Mamoune Seck. Mbene compellingly blends percussive vocalese, narrative suspense, exultant praise, introspection, and grievance.

Nimzat is a devotional tribute to Cheikh Sadbou, a contemporary of Bamba, buried in a mausoleum in Nizmat, in southern Mauritania. Way nala, kagne nala… souma danana fata dale / I call upon you and wonder about you… If I am overwhelmed, come to my aid. The town holds special significance for Khadr Sufism. An annual pilgrimage there is conducted to this day. The rhythm is buoyantly funky; the mood is sombre, reined-in, foreboding. Punctuated by peals of thunder, Mbene sings with restrained, intense reverence; huskily confidential, steadfast. Nanu dem ba Nimzat, dé ba sali khina / Let us go to Nimzat, to seal our devotion.

Just as the hippie era came to an end in America, a second 60s was beginning. In what is now Zimbabwe, young people created a rock and roll counterculture that drew inspiration from hippie ideals and the sounds of Hendrix and Deep Purple. The kids in the scene called their music “heavy,” because they could feel its impact, and it resonated from Zambia to Nigeria. At its peak in the mid-70s, the heavy rock scene united tens of thousands of young progressives of all racial and social backgrounds. The country was called Rhodesia then, one of the last bastions of white rule in Africa, and heavy rockers defied segregation laws and secret police to make a stand for democratic change. Wells Fargo was at the forefront of the scene, and the title track of this album, Watch Out, was the anthem of the counterculture. This is the first time their music has been issued outside of Zimbabwe. Matthew Shechmeister tells the story of Wells Fargo drawing on interviews with the band’s remaining members and numerous trips to Zimbabwe to investigate the genesis of the heavy rock scene under Ian Smith’s oppressive government, and its dissipation after Zimbabwe’s liberation. Never-before-published photographs and rare ephemera color the vibrant era of which this band was part.

First time reissue of JP / US free jazz rarity. Old-style Gatefold LP with rare photographs & liner notes by Ed Hazell. Edition of 1000 BUY HERE: www.aguirrerecords.com/products/marion-brown-awofofora-lp The 1970s were Marion Brown’s most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition. After leaving New York for Europe in 1967, Brown began reshaping his music into what he described as “a more deliberate kind of music that had more structure to it,” pacing it so that moods and modes could develop over time. Albums such as In Sommerhausen, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections, and Sweet Earth Flying trace this evolution: rhythmic structures moved to the foreground, harmony receded, and composition became a matter of orchestrating interlocking rhythmic parts as one would polyphonic lines. Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour. In retrospect, it is entirely consistent with Brown’s methodology. As he admired in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the stimulus comes from within the community. Here Brown filters Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk through his own sensibility, abstracting their structural qualities rather than adopting surface style. “La Placita,” making its first recorded appearance, layers distinct rhythmic phrases in a manner reminiscent of African drum ensembles, over which Brown and trumpeter Ambrose Jackson spin extended improvisations. The standard “Flamingo” is reshaped through diasporic rhythm and lyrical soloing, while “Pepi’s Tempo” and “Mangoes” harness crisp funk and reggae grooves to generate what Brown called a “manifestation of community” through collective improvisation. Even the overdubbed solo feature “And Then They Danced” reflects his structural thinking, ingeniously re-voicing a duet composition for two alto saxophones performed by one player. This was the only recording by a short-lived band that briefly polarized audiences during festival appearances in 1976. Yet Brown consistently sought unity across change: different sounds, same principles — rhythm as structure, melody as architecture, collective improvisation, and above all, the primacy of tone. Awofofora stands not as a departure, but as a vivid synthesis of the elements he had been refining since the late 1960s, its grooves and golden alto lines conveying a sound drawn, in his words, “from life and from the world of experience.”

Boas festas ✨ Wishing you all a beautiful Christmas and a strong, joyful start to the new year from Groningen & Luanda. We’re very happy to finally share some long-awaited news: after five years, we’ve completed the order for the "Turma Da Benção" album at the pressing plant — and the vinyl is officially on its way! It’s been a long journey, but we’re incredibly grateful for everyone’s patience, trust, and support along the road. Pre-orders are now open. To celebrate the season, we’d love to share “Boas Festas” & "Réveillon" two incredible tracks from this forthcoming album, a project rooted in the legacy of Conjunto Angola 70 and co-produced by Paulo Flores. They are included in the vinyl pre-order. More details about the album and upcoming release will follow soon. For now, we hope this track brings you a moment of warmth, reflection, and celebration over the holidays. Thank you for your support during this journey. Onwards into the new year 🖤❤️ Much love, Keep On Pushin Records

A disciple of mambo innovator Perez Prado, the Cuban-born Modesto Duran was a pivotal figure in Latin dance music’s transitionary mid-century period. His gentle slaps can be heard across dozens of 1950s mega-sellers, from Esquivel to Belafonte, Eartha Kitt to Lena Horne. On his 1960 solo debut, Duran gathers a who’s who of conga-men, including Mongo Santamaría, Willie Bobo, and Juan Cheda, delivering a cinematic and percussive melange of afro-cuban, cha cha, and exotic jazz styles for the discerning listener.

Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is the sprawling drum collective tearing up Dakar’s nightlife scene. Senegalese poet Djiby Ly (Wau Wau Collectif) is backed by fourteen different percussive instruments plus horns, winds, balafon, and the occasional accordion, combining Count Ossie’s spiritually elevated polyrhythms with Fela Kuti’s orchestra and Tony Allen’s groove. Based in the impoverished neighborhood of Grand Yoff and operating as a mutual aid group for the larger community, the band builds its songs on ancient rhythms passed on from Senegal, Cameroon, and the infamous Gorée Island. In both Wolof and French, Djiby preaches a message of uplift and cooperation rooted in the Sufi teachings of the Mouride Brotherhood, as well as Christianity and animist religions. “Senegal, my life my joy” is the call and response chanted over cascading, infinitely layered drum patterns on opener “La Musique Du Cœur.” “We build our own country” the band proclaims in Wolof on “Xarritt.” For twenty years and across three generations of band members, Assiko have played raucous all-night jams at weddings, secret parties, and political rallies. Grainy cellphone footage of their live shows has spread online. But this is their first album, the result of a collaboration with Swedish musician and archivist Karl-Jonas Winqvist (Sing A Song Fighter), who met the band in Dakar in 2018 and facilitated recording sessions and overdubs via Whatsapp (no small feat with so many musicians). This is vital, exciting, and innovative music, alive with energy and purpose, a band rooted in a very specific community but speaking to the world. 11月上旬入荷予定。セネガルの首都ダカールのナイトライフ・シーンを引き裂く広大なドラム集団Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoffのファースト・アルバム『Magg Tekki』が〈Mississippi Records〉よりアナログで登場！彼らは20年間、実に3世代にも渡り、結婚式、秘密裏のパーティー、政治集会などで徹夜ジャムを演奏。そのライヴ映像は携帯電話を通じてネット上で拡散されていながらも、今回初めての録音！〈Sahel Sounds〉から作品を送り出していたWau Wau Collectifのメンバーでセネガル人の詩人Djiby Lyも参加。14種類のパーカッシヴな楽器にホーン、管楽器、バラフォン、時折アコーディオンが加わり、スピリチュアルかつ高揚したポリリズムとフェラ・クティのオーケストラ、トニー・アレンのグルーヴが融合した画期的な一枚に仕上げられています。

"Indépendance Cha Cha” was an historic song, not only because it immortalized Congo’s independence in its lyrics, but also because it was the first single published by a Congolese-owned record label. Joseph Kabasele’s label Surboum African Jazz indeed paved the way for several Congolese musicians to become record publishers. It resulted in the 1960s in a plethora of newly found Kinshasa-based record labels, run by the biggest musicians of the time.

With this new series “Les éditeurs congolais”, Planet Ilunga aims to honour and highlight the phonographic and entrepreneurial work of those first Congolese record label bosses. We kick off with a compilation of one of the most significant labels, Les Editions Populaires. This label, founded by Franco Luambo Makiadi in 1968 after he first co-founded with Vicky Longomba the labels Epanza Makita (+/- 117 singles) and Boma Bango (+/- 50 singles) and after starting his first short-lived label Likembe (+/- 5 singles), ran until 1982 and was mostly dedicated to the output of OK Jazz (later TPOK Jazz).

This compilation brings together an original selection of 16 tracks from the first three years of Les Editions Populaires. They are a showcase of the sound Franco had envisioned for his band. The focus was less on cha-cha-cha and Spanish lyrics, but on lingering rumba and bolero ballads in Lingala, tradition-rooted songs in Kikongo, Kimongo and even Yoruba, collaborations with Ngoma artists Camille Feruzi and Manuel d’Oliveira and not to forget solid pastiches of American funk, which were showing that the OK Jazz musicians had an open-minded view on music and were capable of excelling in many genres. Mama Na Ngai indeed!